12 more suspected fighters killed in Sinai
EGYPT’S army said it has killed at least 12 more suspected fighters and arrested almost 100 in a major military operation launched in the northern Sinai Peninsula.
The military released the latest figures yesterday, according to state media, a day after claiming at least 16 fighters had been killed earlier as part of the same operation.
The air force also hit 60 targets, including vehicles, weapons depots, and communication centres, the military statement yesterday said.
The army’s casualty numbers independently verified.
Egypt launched a “comprehensive” security operation involving the country’s army, navy and air force, aimed at pushing armed groups out of the Sinai Peninsula, parts of the Nile Delta and the Western Delta on Friday. Egypt has, for years, battled an armed anti-government campaign in the rugged and thinly populated Sinai Peninsula, which has gained pace since the military overthrew democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-2013.
In November 2017, at least 235 people were killed in a bomb and gun attack on a mosque in Bir al-Abed, a town in North Sinai province.
Afterwards, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi gave a three-month deadline to restore order in the region, using “all brute force” necessary.
Egypt will go to the polls next month, in a vote with little opposition that Sisi looks poised to easily win. — Al Jazeera could not be WASHINGTON — The White House insisted on Sunday that Donald Trump was “shocked and disturbed” by allegations of domestic abuse that led two staffers to resign, after the president faced flak for saying lives were being ruined by possibly false claims.
Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Trump, said the president pushed the two staffers out the moment he saw credible evidence against them.
Other top White House aides similarly supported Trump’s handling of the latest controversy to upend his administration.
“I think the president, like the rest of us, were shocked and disturbed by the allegations”. Conway said on ABC’s “This Week”.
Trump is said to be annoyed by the focus on the latest White House turmoil, especially as it comes on the eve of his release of a major infrastructure spending initiative.
“So many positive things going on for the USA and the Fake News Media just doesn’t want to go there,” he tweeted on Sunday. “Same negative stories over and over again.”
Conway said the job of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was not in jeopardy over his handling of the matter. Critics say he badly mishandled the situation, possibly even exposing one of the ousted aides to the risk of blackmail.
Asked about Trump’s tweet on Saturday that lives were being “shattered and destroyed” by allegations that are sometimes false, Conway told CNN’s “State of the Union” that there was “no reason not to believe the women”.
Yet Trump made no mention of the ex-wives of the two former staffers, or of the alleged abuse, and his response has drawn widespread criticism from his opponents.
Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said the president had again shown a total lack of empathy for victims of abuse.
“The lives of survivors of sexual assault and domestic abuse are being shattered every day,” she wrote on Twitter.
“The President has shown through words and actions that he doesn’t value women. It’s not surprising that he doesn’t believe survivors or understand the national conversation that is happening.” — AFP